Soul in different Religion

The word Soul finds its presence in almost every religion be it Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Jainism. Philosophers across the religion comes to one conclusion that there must be something within the living body that drives them to perform acts.

Science call it the energy that keeps the body alive. In Metaphysics , the concept is seen as the Mind referring to consciousness , intellect of living being. Absence or the departure of the soul from the body marks the death of the materialistic matter. Thus it is evident that oneself is immortal, the concept is elaborated in great detail in Vedic scriptures, while only the physical body is mortal that gets returned back to the materialistic entity.

The self is pure as long as the soul is present inside the body, while the body becomes impure with the departure of the soul or the energy. There is no concrete evidence on scientific paradigms about the place where the soul resides in the body but it is mentioned in the Vedic philosophy and suggests that the soul finds its place close to the heart while it affects the whole body and drives the body to perform the acts. It is same as lighting a candle in a dark room , though candle standing alone at one place but lights the whole surrounding.

Soul being the energy is not capable of doing anything alone by itself rather performs acts with the help of the materialistic body.

In Hinduism, Jainism every living being itself is considered the Atma / Jeev with the physical body being the physical appearance. Thus body is mere the mechanism to observe but not to observe itself, the actual observation happens by the one residing inside the physical body. There are great details available for the concept in several philosophies across the religion.

In Islamic practices, there is reference of Ruh ( Spirit ) being immortal while the body after death lies in rest.

As per Vedic / Jain philosophy the soul is eternal and there is no beginning nor end of the soul. Soul is present in every living being be it plant, animal or human. Though soul can be categorized in two types – 1) Liberated Sol – Soul that has attained liberation ( Moksha ) 2) Non Liberated Soul – Soul being stuck in the life cycle which can be in the form of Manusya Gati (Human Being ), Tiryanch Gati ( Non human ), Dev Gati ( Heaven ) or Narak Gati ( Hell ).

As long as the Soul doesnot get liberated, it gets attached to any of the physical bodies based on its Karma , past deeds performed with the physical body.

Until the attainment, Soul changes the body from time to time in the same way thoughts changes in our mind. Soul, itself, is neither a male, nor a female, nor unisex. It is the physical body where soul resides that determines the sex. After the death of the current physical body the same soul may swap from male to female bodies in the next life cycle.